In 2013, Zuckerman et al. conducted a meta-analysis of 63 studies that showed a negative intelligence-religiosity relation (IRR). Now a new meta-analysis with an updated data set of 83 studies has re-addressed the issue.
The new analysis showed that the correlation between intelligence and religious beliefs in college and non-college samples ranged from -.20 to -.23. There was no support for mediation of the IRR by education but there was support for partial mediation by analytic cognitive style.
In 2012, Canadian scientists tested the hypothesis that an analytic cognitive style is associated with a history of questioning, altering, and rejecting (i.e., unbelieving) supernatural claims, both religious and paranormal. In two studies, they examined associations of God beliefs, religious engagement (attendance at religious services, praying, etc.), conventional religious beliefs (heaven, miracles, etc.), and paranormal beliefs (extrasensory perception, levitation, etc.) with performance measures of cognitive ability and analytic cognitive style. An analytic cognitive style negatively predicted both religious and paranormal beliefs when controlling for cognitive ability as well as religious engagement, sex, age, political ideology, and education. Participants more willing to engage in analytic reasoning were less likely to endorse supernatural beliefs. Further, an association between analytic cognitive style and religious engagement was mediated by religious beliefs, suggesting that an analytic cognitive style negatively affects religious engagement via lower acceptance of conventional religious beliefs.
Some time ago, I reported about a study concluding that a higher religiousness/spirituality is associated with a more frequent use of supplements or additional therapies in individuals with endocrinopathies or metabolic diseases. As so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) has been shown to be associated with worse outcome, addressing religiousness/spirituality which stresses the responsibility of the person for his life might offer an additional resource and should be further studied.
On this blog, we have discussed many times, that advocacy of SCAM is associated with vaccination hesitancy; see, for instance here, here, and here)
Finally, the findings of a recent study suggest that beliefs in an engaged God were associated with greater mistrust in the COVID-19 vaccine. This association was amplified for Hispanic and lower-educated Americans. The authors argued that beliefs in an engaged God may promote distrust of science, reduce motivation to get vaccinated, and derive comfort and strength by placing control over one’s life in the hands of a loving, involved deity.
There are, of course, other factors involved in the complex relationships between intelligence, religiosity, SCAM, and vaccination hesitancy. Yet, it seems clear that such links do exist. I agree that it is well worth investigating them in more detail.
25 Responses to Intelligence, Religiosity, SCAM, Vaccination Hesitancy – are there links?
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There is strong correlation between ignorance about vaccines and someone being a vax-lover. No surprise. For example most people in love with the Covid vaccines actually believe that they prevent transmission and will end the supposed pandemic sooner, despite the fact that they only reduce symptoms in a small percent of the people receiving them. They also believe, contrary to the evidence that they aren’t killing anyone and are harming few. Willful ignorance; a very pernicious form of stupidity. More examples of the success of the CON-med confidence game.
“There is strong correlation between ignorance about vaccines and someone being a vax-lover.”
EVIDENCE PLEASE!
“most people in love with the Covid vaccines actually believe that they prevent transmission”
PEOPLE SUPPORT IT BUT ARE NOT IN LOVE WITH IT
NOBODY CLAIMED THAT IT PREVENTS TRANSMISSION
“they only reduce symptoms in a small percent of the people receiving them.”
WRONG, THEY DO MUCH MORE
“Willful ignorance; a very pernicious form of stupidity”
CORRECT! AND YOU ARE STRONGLY AFFECTED BY IT
Here’s an interesting note on the ongoing endemic.
The Chair lady of the South African Medical Association has make interesting statement with regard to the Omicron variant. You won’t find this in your mainstream liberally biased news sources.
“Dr. Coetzee points out that new variants aren’t a surprise and nobody carrying the latest one, Omicron, has been hospitalized.”
“Quite simply, I have been stunned at the response – and especially from Britain. And let me be clear: nothing I have seen about this new variant warrants the extreme action the UK government has taken in response to it,” she continued. “No one here in South Africa is known to have been hospitalised with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it.”
Further, Coetzee reiterated the mildness of the variant so far. ”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/12/01/south-african-doctor-blasts-overreaction-to-new-virus-variant-n2599904
In other words, the virus downgraded itself and is now no more dangerous than the typical seasonal flu virus.
Keep up the hype, control the narrative, control the masses.
as one could by no means be sure, the precautionary principle had to apply
thus your remark “Keep up the hype, control the narrative, control the masses”
is imbecilic.
@Edzard
My 2 cents: our cute couple Ruthy ‘n Roger are probably just dumb trolls, trying to yank your chain.
Still, their comments are useful in a way: they present us with a nicely condensed version of the prevailing sentiments among antivaccine nitwits, quacks, right-wing bigots and other idiots, saving us the trouble of searching for those things ourselves 🙂
I fear they are real – simply because inventions can hardly be as daft as they are.
@Richard Rasker
You are an eternal optimist! 🙂
lol… bigot
“person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions”
You define yourself with your own intolerance, take a look inside.
You amuse me Richard. If I’m a bigot for stating my opinions here, then so are you.
Edzard,
I have lived long enough, and spent enough time in medical practice, to realise that there is nothing so stupid that somebody somewhere hasn’t done it. So I am inclined to agree with you.
When data are available an informed view of the omicron variant can be taken. Until then – we just don’t know, so being cautious is a valid approach.
Thank you for confirming the study…
Hahaha
Don’t put your focus on my “imbecilic” comment.
Why don’t you rather address the subject of the post ?
Is your goal is to distract from the truth ?
@Ruthy
Wow…you are such a bad ass truth seeker. But you are seeking truth in the wrong universe and that is a fool’s errand. Truth is something that is very subjective and malleable based on one’s whims. If one believes in something to be true, then that is the ground truth and no amount of evidence to the contrary should sway their belief. One may choose to make up their own alternate reality based on alternate truths and yet live a very productive life, just ask the queen of alt-facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrEEDQgFc8&t=120s.
There is nothing wrong with creating and living in your own alternate reality. I do it all the time, for example, I believe that earth is flat, evolutionary and germ theories were disproven with overwhelming evidence therefore covid and flu don’t exist etc. Unlike you, I don’t go around demanding answers in a different universe. You certainly are familiar with the fact that many parallel universes exist in the quantum realm, but they don’t interact with each other. This is similar in that a made-up reality that exists in your head will not and shall not interact with the real world no matter how much you want it to. If you really need to demand answers and get to the truth, I say make a few sock puppets and role-play with them. Demand answers from them and you can make them say whatever you want them to say. For example: make a sock puppet and demand to know if covid is lab made and make the puppet answer yes. Problem solved! You got to the truth your seeking!
un-Honest-Ape
Many truths are subjective, many are not …. but that’s fine with me. You stick with your truth and I’ll go by my truth. That’s also known as an opinion.
However, don’t just spout your rhetoric about truth… address the subject of the post instead of attacking my personally. To hell with you and your parallel universes BS, you sound more like an idiot the more you say.
The Fouch is a fraud. Either he did, or did not lie about the NIH funding gain of function research in Wuhan. There is not room for opinion. The NIH admitted he did.
Address the subject of the post instead of attacking my personally.
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens
@ruthless-Ruthy
Well said Lady Ruthy! Every time you open your mouth you end up giving me (inadvertently of course) more material to work with.
If we are going to stick with our own truths, then why not determine for ourselves which truths are subjective and which are not, for convenience’s sake. In my alternate reality, pigs can fly, and the “Fouch” doesn’t exist, in yours, he is a liar. You see how easy it is to make up our own subjective reality that has nothing to do with the real world. All that said, allow me to introduce some new words (and their Newspeak renditions) based on our very productive discussion. I am certain that these words will be added to Merriam-Webster dictionary for 2021 as well as the Newspeak dictionary, considering that we are already living in a post-truth dystopia.
trupinion (Newspeak: trupin) – opinion that one considers as ground truth.
opinitruths/opinifacts (Newspeak: opitru/opifac) – truths and facts that one establishes based on their opinions.
Ahhh..the ever-elusive truth. You wouldn’t know even if it hit you in the face. But I admire your quixotic effort to
tilt at windmillsseek opinitruths.Address what subject Ruthy? The original blog post (Intelligence, Religiosity, SCAM, Vaccination Hesitancy – are there links?) has nothing to do with the “Fouch” or with gain of function research. Did you get your wires crossed again? Or is it your trupinion that everything that is posted on this blog by its author is somehow related to origin of covid?
Looks like your ego was bruised because no one wants to talk to you about the “Fouch”. Since you are into curing illnesses with food, I am sure you could eat some food to cure your hurt ego.
If you think that vaccine hesitancy doesn’t have anything to do with the fouch … you need check again.
It’s pretty much what Logan was speaking of when she testified that many many people around the world consider Fauci as an evil (with regard to his covid virus response and involvement).
For right or wrong, good or bad, this is what people think of Fauci.
Thank Fauci for his part in vaccine hesitancy. The little twit shoulda been ousted from his position many months ago for his failures.
@Ruthy
You said the following in one of your previous posts, when you probably had a momentary lapse of reason:
I called your subjective truths opinitruths:
As I have said before, my established opinitruths dictate that pigs on the wing exist and Fauci doesn’t, therefore anything Fauci says good or bad is not relevant to me. Even if Fauci existed and made statements, he probably made them based on the opinifacts that he is familiar with. Your opinitruths may not align with others but you said above that you are okay with that, yet here you are incessantly and belligerently whining about anything that you don’t agree with. You are either a delusional fool or doesn’t really mean what you say or both. Either way, I doubt any sane person reading your comments care about what you have to say. SAD!
By the way, it looks like you haven’t managed to cure your bruised ego yet. Allow me to suggest cowpathy. Apparently smearing
cow dungbullshit on bruised ego works wonders, as per a study I read recently. You should try that sometime.And yet, Jews, that only make 0.2% of the population have won 20% of Nobel prizes. Even Richard Dawkins had difficulty explaining that away.
I don’t find this difficult to explain: schooling, upbringing, etc.
Jews tend to aggregate and only marry within their cult. It is also true that Jews tend to marry within their own socio-demographic group, that is wealthier, more intelligent marry.
It is equally true that such inbreeding causes genetic problems;
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6638941/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_genetics_of_Jews
By the way, many so-called Jews are only cultural Jews, such as Einstein, and do not believe the fictional books and the existence of a genocidal, celestial fairy with a fondness for incest.
What is your point?
Frank,
I think Professor Baum was gently stirring the waters by making the point in a light-hearted way that the generalisations discussed in this post may not be universally true.
You may not be aware that he is one of the UK’s most distinguished surgeons and well-known for his contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, and I have been privileged to hear him lecture on the subject. He is also a very vocal opponent of SCAM and has publically taken Prince Charles to task for his stance on homeopathy.
I don’t understand why you have chosen to insult him in this gratuitous and antisemitic way. What is YOUR point?
I think this shows how easily context and nuance can be lost in on-line discussions.
I originally thought that Michael Baum’s comment was antisemitic, but happy to take your assurance that it isn’t.
Michael Baum makes no secret of the fact that he is Jewish, and has worked hard over the course of his career to build bridges between researchers in England and Israel to further the cause of breast cancer research as well as to bring together communities in both countries.
Your comment has reminded me of a joke that Dave Allen (a much loved Irish comedian) used to tell, which went something along the following lines:
“Top of the morning to you Seamus. That’s a fine shiner you’re sporting, so it is.”
“Good morning to you, too, Dermot. I got it from Paddy Murphy after I told him a joke about the Pope.”
“You eejit! Everybody knows Paddy is a Catholic.”
“To be sure he is. But I never knew the Pope was a Catholic too.”
I believe that Richard Dawkins was a Fellow of New College, Oxford, which as far as I can ascertain only has only produced two Nobel laureates so far. Perhaps if you asked somebody from Trinity College, Cambridge, which has 34, you may get a better answer.
Answer: It’s that Covenant!